[Python-Dev] How we can get rid of eggs for 2.6 and beyond

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

skip at pobox.com writes:
 > 
 >     Joachim> I think, the uninstall should _not_ 'rm -rf' but only 'rm' the
 >     Joachim> files (and 'rmdir' directories, but not recursively) that it
 >     Joachim> created, and that have not been modified in the meantime (after
 >     Joachim> the installation). 
 > 
 > That's not sufficient.  Suppose file C (e.g. /usr/local/etc/mime.types) is
 > in both packages A and B.
 > 
 >     Install A - this will create C
 >     Install B - this might overwrite C, saving a copy, or it might retain
 >                 A's copy.
 >     Uninstall B - this has to know that C is used by A and not touch it

MacPorts has an expensive but interesting approach.  When it finds a
file used by another package, it backs it up to sth like $file.`date`.